Out of these 6 teams, which team do you think is the best? Please rank these teams from best to worst (in your opinion). Even though regular season points should obviously be considered, please consider how well these teams performed in the playoffs....and how well these teams were built for the playoffs (well if they won, then they obviously were built?).

My rankings/pecking order is pretty close to what their regular season point totals would indicate where they should stand. I placed Anaheim ahead of Carolina however, because I think Anaheim's grit and toughness would make them a superior team to the 2006 version of Carolina come playoff time.

I wasn't quite sure about putting Boston 2011 over Pitsburgh 2009. Boston went to three Game 7's during their cup run. They also seemed to be EXTREMELY dependent on Thomas.....whereas the other Cup winning teams didn't seem to be as dependent on one particular player (although I also don't want to take away credit from guys like Chara, Sidenberg, and Bergeron, and Marchand during the finals). On top of that however, Boston's offense was very 'hit' and 'miss'. Some games, they really lit teams up....and other games, they couldn't buy a goal. I have actually never seen a team so "Jekyll and Hyde" with their offense. The Bruins were definitely a strange fucking team....albeit, a great one obviously.

Out of the 6 teams, only 1 team (Detroit) was a pure "skill" team I believe (i.e. the team that the Canucks are trying to model themselves after).

3 of those teams were stacked with grit and toughness.......which coincidentally enough, were the teams that we lost to.

Pitsburgh and Carolina didn't have as much grit/toughness/size as our 3 assassins, but it wasn't a liability either.

I'm not sure how I would label our Canucks team from this past season. Some people claim that we weren't gritty enough, but we out hit every single team in the post-season. We out-hit each and every opponent of ours, and that includes Boston. 4 or maybe even 5 of the 7 games played against Boston, we out-hit them. Our overall shot total against Boston was also superior.

One thing I did notice with Anaheim, Chicago, and Boston, was that they took absolutely no shit between the whistles.....and also responded well to when one of their guys got hit. The Canucks however, did not. I don't know much about Carolina and Pitsburgh and so I can't comment.

One thing about that Penguins team, they might have only finished with 99 points but under Dan Bylsma they were 18-3-4 in the regular season. So yeah... pretty good team.

Nevertheless, it's a really tough call trying to decide between these teams.

I feel like the easiest pick is for the Hurricanes as the "worst" of the lot.

After that.. every team has some element that just can't be ignored. Boston had an all-world goaltender that got into the heads of the opponent. Pittsburgh had the best 1-2 punch in the game with Crosby and Malkin. Anaheim had a better top pairing than we will likely see ever again. Chicago had just ridiculous high end depth. Detroit had similar depth, a similar 1-2 punch in their forward group, one of the best defensemen ever..

One way to consider these teams, and not too far off from the truth I suppose - a list of playoff losses for Cup winners, from least to most:

9: Carolina, Boston

8: Pittsburgh

6: Detroit, Chicago

5: Anaheim

Farhan Lalji wrote:Out of the 6 teams, only 1 team (Detroit) was a pure "skill" team I believe (i.e. the team that the Canucks are trying to model themselves after).

I think the grit on that Red Wings team is pretty underrated. Tell me Tomas Holmstrom isn't gritty, or Dan Cleary. Even guys like Datsyuk and Zetterberg play the body when the situation calls for it. Then there's Kronwall and Stuart on the blueline, and guys like Dallas Drake, McCarty and Draper were still gritty role players.

I agree that the Hurricanes should be at the bottom of the pile, based on who they beat, the ridiculous weakness of that division at the time, and the fact that they missed the playoffs the next year. Players lost after the cup were Cullen, Weight, Recchi, and Aaron Ward - basically the third line and 5-6D.

I would put Boston at second-last, I didn't expect them to get out of the first round and frankly they were lucky to make it as far as they did, and feasted on injury-ravaged Philly and Vancouver to win it all, and then of course the non-calls in Game 7 vs Tampa Bay.

My first instinct was to put Pitt-CHI-Ana as 1-2-3. The fact that Pitt had Crosby playing lights out and he didn't even win the Conn Smythe shows how insane that team was. Chicago - maybe because we saw them up close their skill is magnified. Ana - because we've been talking about them so damn much in the other thread

Maybe I don't give those 08 Wings enough credit because I think they had an easy road. They played the 8th, 6th, and 5th seed in the West. I had actually forgotten that the Stars made it to the WCF that year. The next season, none of those teams even qualified for the playoffs.

Carolina - Skated a fairly easy path to the finals that year (about the same as ours, though lesser opponents overall) and ended up facing the ground and pound Oiler's who had no right even being in the playoffs that year considering they got in on OT losses and had fewer wins than the 9th place team in the West. Ultimately though the Canes faced a hot goalie and some hard work, and very little scoring punch. Carolina's solution? Run the goalie early in game 6 and take him out of the series (still needed to win it in game 7 though).

Anaheim - Goon squad with a side of talent. Got away with murder from the drop of the first playoff puck. It escalated every series and the officiating exited stage right by the time Ottawa was marched in front of the firing squad.

Detroit - Poetry on ice. Have been for years. Have never heard the word panic, are all about winning, chemistry through nearly 18 skaters, poise, presence, pride. There's a reason GMMG modeled the Canucks after them..... now if he can only entice Bowman out of retirement.....

Pittsburgh - Skill, some grit, minus Hossa (LMAO), best player in the game at C, depth down the middle, a horseshoe toting goalie who finally played to potential. Deserved the win. 2008 and 2009 were my favorite 2 finals to watch since 94. Entertaining, run-and-gun hockey, coupled with hard work at both ends of the ice by both teams..... oh yeah, and next to none of the bullshit we saw in other years.

Chicago - Built for a single shot at the grail. Got lucky, got refs, got goaltending when they needed it. They were classless to a fault, immature, hot headed but got the job done. And hey, they had some serious talent on that team too. Following season? Team was blown up due to salary cap issues and they almost missed the playoffs. Ended up going out in the first round, would have been swept except for the flu bug and some very generous officiating.

Boston - Anaheim Part Deux. Played hard, low on the pure talent and finesse department, barely able to win their sad sack NE division in the regular season, walked over everyone in the first 2 rounds of the playoffs until they met some real talent in Tampa. Then they needed help from some pocketed whistles to ultimately pound down a more talented team in the finals. Oh and a shit-hot goalie too (although Tampa lit him up nicely on the PP when Boston was going down a 2nd man routinely).

Detroit was the best of them. PIttsburgh a close 2nd and Chicago 3rd. Carolina had an easy road and would probably not have taken out any of the teams that made it to the conference finals in all of the subsequent years. Anaheim and Boston were and embarrassment to the game and what the NHL allows in postseason hockey.

Meds wrote:
Anaheim and Boston were and embarrassment to the game and what the NHL allows in postseason hockey.

Good breakdown.

Considering the league put together this season's schedule during the late stages of the playoffs, and scheduled the Canucks season opener at home against the gallantly returning Sidney Crosby and his Pittsburgh Penguins, me thinks the league thought Vancouver was a pretty good bet to win the cup.

I wouldn't say there's any conspiracy that allows a certain team to win, but there seems to be an archaic, irrational mindset within certain parts of the league office and the on-ice officials.

The argument that you're being fair by "letting teams play" and not properly enforcing the rules is absolute horseshit.

By not making calls you ARE dictating the outcome of the game because you're not protecting players and you're robbing teams of opportunities they should be receiving. When one team clearly takes more infractions than the other, and you don't blow the whistle, you're playing in the hands of that team.

The game has rules for a reason, and while I understand how certain calls are not made in some isolated instances, just putting your whistle away for games at a time is bullshit.

This isn't some sort of a theory or conjecture, it's blatantly obvious.

Like Topper said it's baffling that the league was publicly saying they would crack down on the on-ice nonsense but not coming through on the ice.

The worst part of it was the officials calling the infractions when the games got out of hand or a team got a couple of quick goals. It was infuriating because you knew that covers the officials and the league because they can point to how many PP's were given out and how the losing team "did have its chances."

As you mentioned, the Bolts were winning when the Bruins' bullshit was being called, but once Stephen Walkom got involved and lived up to his reputation for mysteriously surviving without oxygen for two and a half hours or more at a time, no penalties were called in Game 7, and lo and behold, the big bad assholes won.

Meds wrote:
Anaheim and Boston were and embarrassment to the game and what the NHL allows in postseason hockey.

I wouldn't say there's any conspiracy that allows a certain team to win, but there seems to be an archaic, irrational mindset within certain parts of the league office and the on-ice officials.

I dunno.... look at the cup winners from the last 10 years.

Winning team is either a financial drain with shitty attendance or an eastern, original six, team (Chicago and Detroit are in the West but are major US cities on the eastern side of the country). With the exception of Detroit and Boston all of them were teams recovering or trying to recover their fan base. Detroit was trying to recover its economy (has been for years though).

The only time you've actually had a pair of skilled teams go head to head where it was legitimately decided on the ice within the context of the rules of hockey was the back-to-back Detroit and PIttsburgh series. And the NHL pretty much received a gift wrapped media whore with those two. Sid versus the Wing's Dynasty.

You can't for a moment say that the league doesn't realize that it's 6 (and now 7 again ) Canadian based teams float the NHL's financial boat and will continue to do so until the fans collectively grow a pair and tell the league to F### off by boycotting for a season until the head offices wake up and realize that they are in the limelight and need to play fair or lose money. Of course the fans in Canada aren't about to do that. They are too busy hen-pecking at one another (see Bountiful for the most recent editions) to get on the same page and realize that they are all being screwed..... well except for Toronto, they just suck.

Regardless. The business of hockey will always trump the gamesmanship. Until the source of the business(the fans) changes things.

Meds wrote:
I dunno.... look at the cup winners from the last 10 years.

There may be something to it, but all the teams that won were still pretty good those years, they had solid talent and did well to get there. Some of those teams have been contenders for more than one year, and the one year teams like Chicago were pretty damn good.

I'm not sure the league would conspire to fuck the Flyers who have lost their last 5 cup appearances since winning it in 75. But the Hawks were clearly the better team and they were healthy, so I don't think it really matters.

Carolina's first cup finals appearance was against Detroit in 2002, and at that time winning the cup was far more important to the Canes than it was to Detroit, so the argument then would be that Detroit had its original 6 status to go with their obvious edge in talent.

The first time the Pens met the Wings, it was far more important for Pittsburgh to win, but again Detroit won...btw, those two finals were fantastic.

The main reason I don't think there's a league wide scheme every playoffs is I think the Canucks would have won the series if they didn't have as many injuries, and the key guys were hurt before they got to the final.

Perhaps a conscious effort was made to sway the outcome one way over another when the series was close and the opportunity presented itself, but that's as far as I say it would go.

coco_canuck wrote:The argument that you're being fair by "letting teams play" and not properly enforcing the rules is absolute horseshit.

I always hated this argument.

Yes you want to see some tough ass hockey in the playoffs, but I want to see what makes this the best game on the planet prevail in the end. The skill, speed, stamina, strength, intelligence, work ethic and desire. I don't want to see simply the biggest, toughest team win.

In the long run that's not what makes for good hockey.

You want rules that let the most talented players be their best, because they have put in the time and effort to develop their talent under these rules. And then when it matters most you loosen the reigns and quite literally change how the game is played and therefore determine which players will be more successful.

Anaheim had it figured to a "T" when they won the Cup and even the few years surrounding that win. The refs will only call so many penalties, they wouldn't ever call 10-15 for one team and 2-3 for the other even if it was warranted. So you could literally beat your opposition into submission.

That type of game is not what will attract and keep fans and it's not how hockey should be played in a league with the most talent players on the planet.

Don't get me wrong i want to see the physicality because that is an important factor in NHL hockey but at the end of the day the game needs to have a set of rules that let the most talented and hardest working players succeed, and they need to maintain these rules no matter what time of year it is.

Aaronp18 wrote:
Don't get me wrong i want to see the physicality because that is an important factor in NHL hockey but at the end of the day the game needs to have a set of rules that let the most talented and hardest working players succeed, and they need to maintain these rules no matter what time of year it is.

In addition to that, they need to maintain them for all players too. It's no secret that star players get called differently than a 4th liner, and that many calls are based on reputation. I think part of the reason it was OK to hack the Caucks so much was because everyone bought into the idea that all the Canucks were divers and embellishers, so it was open season on them and anytime something happened, the media and fans were more concerned with how much a head snapped when a guy takes a stick to the chops rather than the fact that there was a guy beating the shit out of him.

I'm not into the conspiracy theory around the refs, but the emphasis on embellishments seemed almost orchestrated. The way the media and fans gobbled up the Boyle and Heatly comments about the Canuck divers was stupid considering their own teammate provided the most blatant and laughable dive of the playoffs just a few games prior to their comments. I don't recall any media pointing out the irony of this. It was funny how Joe Thornton could try to headbutt Kesler at the faceoff but it was the Cancucks that were a disgrace to the game. Poor Bergeron gets all the sympathy when he is sticking his finger in a guys mouth, but Lapierre should be suspended for offering his.

Now, i don't think the League "decides" who wins, but sometimes it does seem like, when the opportunity presents itself, some calls are made less objectively than they should be. It could also be more subtle than that. Media and fan pressure could be a factor, and with the anti-Canuck sentiments, the new focus on embellishments, and the Tim Thomas feel-good story, it was easy to allow things to go in the favor of Boston, for the sake of positive reporting and a sense of "the right team won". The problem with the NHL is that it has such a bad track record for inconsistency in on-ice calls and disciplinary decisions that its easy to make a case of outright corruption, and this is clearly the fault of the NHL.

It seems odd that they might be trying to sell the game to new fans by using tactics that favor certain teams while at the same the confusing those new fans because they have no bloody idea when or why something is a penalty. What a sad state of affairs if that is whats going on. Until the NHL finally decides to put the best product on the ice that they can rather than follow a certain business plan, they would be confusing the hell out of potential new fans and pissing off the ones that know the game. Considering that this is a business and money is the bottom line, if there is a "plan" to favor the struggling teams or more media-favorable ones, i don't expect the NHL to do a damn thing about its officiating on and off the ice.

So I decided to look at some old boxscores, thinking I would prove that more penalties were called in the 08 finals when Detroit won it than in the 11 finals.

Much to my surprise, there were substantially fewer penalties in 08 than in 11. But (of course) that doesn't tell the story.

The interesting pattern is that the Canucks victories had only 9.3 Pen/Game, while the 3 home victories for Boston had a whopping 22.3 Pen/game (by my calculation, anyways). And of course, the vast majority of the penalties were called in the third, when the score was already out of hand.

The 08 finals saw a much more balanced approach game to game, with much less variance in the number of penalties called. In 11, it went from a low of 6 PIMs in Game 7 to a high of 145 PIMs in game 3. So what we saw in 11 was a massive inconsistency in how play was called in the two buildings, and a consistent piling-on of powerplays in the third period of games that were already out of hand in Boston.

So basically I would agree to some officiating bias, but it wasn't what I was expecting: Detroit benefitted from consistent refereeing, and playing games that didn't become massive penalty-fests (except for game 2), not from games being called tightly. Boston benefitted from games where huge numbers of penalties were being called on both sides, even though Vancouver would often end up with a slight advantage in # of powerplays.

Unfortunately, my little cause-and-effect was thrown out the window by game 7 Nonetheless, its clear that officiating consistency was more apparent in 08 than in 11.

I would bet things would look a lot closer if you looked at penalties called during tied games, one goal leads, two goal leads and three-or-more.

Things got so out-of-hand in Boston because the games were over early.

All that being said, unfortunately we could spend all day looking at penalties called but I think most Canucks fans are more interested in measuring penalties committed (and the discrepancy between the two figures). Unfortunately that's simply not possible.

How about Rome throwing a clean, albeit half second late, hit on Horton and receiving a 4 game suspension.

Peverly then uses his stick with intent to injure on Bieksa and gets nothing, not even 2 minutes. Bieksa ended up with a bruised PCL and had to play hurt for the rest of the series. I think that if the league is reviewing hits where someone is hurt, even clean hits, then the use of a stick as a weapon should warrant the same.

Boychuk on Raymond. Even Fraser said that should have warranted at least a 2 minute penalty for the way he can-openered Raymond with his stick.....I suppose a subtle shove into the boards at the end was totally benign.

Thomas hacks Burrows. Nothing.

Lucic slew foots Burrows at a faceoff. Both go. WTF?

Lucic hacks Burrows then punches him in the head. Same wide swinging hook from behind that Bertuzzi used on Moore. Same (almost) size differential too.

Daniel, standing with arms at his side, taking 5 punches in the chin from Marchand. Both go?

So that was just in the finals.

This season Boston sent 2 players to the sidelines for indefinite periods of time with fractured vertebra. In neither of these instances did a player receive a suspension nor any discipline from the league. I still think that Chara's goonery on Pacioretty should have been the end of his season. The only way the league sends a message that will be heard is if they make an example out of a marquis player. Of course they won't.